Pest management with the National Parks and Wildlife Service
ABC Central West Morning Show, 16/09/2008 08.44am
Interview with Jason Neville, pest management officer wit the National Parks and Wildlife Service, about their pest management program.
Janice McGilchrist: Feral animals have a huge impact on the natural environment, particularly within state forests and parks. The National Parks and Wildlife Service is hoping to get animal numbers within the region’s reserves under control this week, with the latest stage of its pest management program. The National Parks and Wildlife Service’s pest management officer is Jason Neville. Good morning.
Jason Neville: Good morning Janice.
Janice McGilchrist: What sort of animals are we talking about here, what feral pest animals are we talking about?
Jason Neville: Janice, what the National Parks is hoping to do is implement some control programs to manage feral goats and feral pigs within our high conservation national parks and nature reserves, within the central west landscape.
Janice McGilchrist: And how much damage are wild goats and pigs actually causing?
Jason Neville: Janice, it’s a very interesting question. The damage is quite significant. With feral goats, they’re a highly adaptable animal and they can survive in a wide range of landscape conditions and climatic conditions. And what the feral goats in the national parks and nature reserves are doing are selectively grazing and browsing more palatable species. So what they’re actually is changing the environment that we’re trying to conserve, our natural Australian environment. And they’re dislocating native animals in these parks, they’re dislocating them from habitat areas and denying them food resources and shelter resources as well.
The feral pigs is another complex issue because the feral pig is a vector for livestock diseases, but it also damages waterways, it fouls waterways and creek lines. And what we try to do is keep our conservation parks as best we can in the central west.
The other interesting element that these pest animals, the feral goat and feral pig have, is that they also impact on our neighbours. Our neighbours are farmers and working in agriculture and these animals cause threats to their enterprises as well.
Feral pigs have been known to predate on lambs and we’re seeing a lot of farmers with lambs at the moment. And also the feral goats can come down if the cockies are trying to supplementary feed sheep to keep them alive, then the feral goats can directly compete for that resource with the sheep that they’re trying to keep alive as well.
Janice McGilchrist: Obviously Jason, these aren’t native fauna that we’re talking about. Where did they come from in the first place?
Jason Neville: Look Janice, the feral pig has been in the landscape for a long time. They were brought out at the point of settlement for food supplies, but the feral pig has adapted and become entrenched into our landscape.
The feral goat in the central west, there was a time where goats could be a supplementary income, but because of the wild nomadic nature of their behaviour, they’ve roamed far and wide and a long way out of the farmers’ paddocks that originally brought them in.
Now this has probably happened years and years ago, and we’re dealing with remnant populations that have managed to get up and made little habitat pockets in the conservation reserves.
Janice McGilchrist: Is that because these pigs and goats don’t have any natural predators?
Jason Neville: That’s correct Janice. In our landscape within the central west here, the feral goat and the feral pig occupy the top of the food chain. So there’s no natural population regulation that goes on with these animals. And because of their highly adaptable behaviours, they can survive in a lot of different landscapes.
One of their advantages in a pest animal is they’re highly nomadic and they can use a wide variety of landscapes, so what we’re trying to do is close the population pockets down that we know of in the nature reserves and national parks. And try to reduce the numbers, so that there’s not the damage to the native flora and fauna.
Janice McGilchrist: Now this pest control program that starts this week, which areas will you be targeting?
Jason Neville: Janice, we’re concentrating mainly on the landscape of the Central West. We’re starting in Bathurst on Tuesday. We’re going to fly over the Winburndale Nature Reserve, a prominent range of Hills East of Bathurst. And then we’re coming through the Orange landscape, we pick up a number of reserves, of which Mount Canobolas is one of these icon parks that we have. And then we’re flying out to Forbes, where we’re going to look at the Goobang National Park, Weddin National Park at Grenfell, Conimbla National Park at Cowra and Nangar National Park between Eugowra and Forbes.
So what we’re trying to do is get to as many of our national parks and nature reserves as we can and then we fly out to Willandra National Parks in the Riverina Plains and try a control program there as well.
Janice McGilchrist: My guest is Jason Neville. He’s a senior ranger in pest management control with National Parks and Wildlife Service. Jason, what sort of pest management control will be used?
Jason Neville: Janice, we’re using a control technique called aerial culling and because the goats have been nomadic and formed isolated pockets, population pockets in our reserves, we’ve tried a number of different techniques.
What we’ve found in the remnant landscape of the Central West, is that we can’t appropriately muster or trap the feral goats and pigs and what we have to do is go in using a helicopter and implement an aerial shooting program to remove these animals from these remote isolated pockets within the reserves.
Janice McGilchrist: Is there a risk to other animals?
Jason Neville: No Janice. The technique is highly selective and the training program that the vast - the feral animal aerial shoot team people undertake, is very, very structured and very rigid. And the technique is very selective. We’re looking clearly for feral goats and feral pigs during this operation.
Janice McGilchrist: And are these reserves being closed for public safety?
Jason Neville: My word they are, Janice. What we try - public safety and risk management is paramount for our organisation and paramount for these control programs. And what we’re doing is the nature reserves in the Bathurst landscape are all closed to the public anyway, but the public visitation areas will be closed.
We’ve tried to implement a media campaign where we’ve notified by letter all our neighbours. We’re hopefully using media as a tool for us to try and reinforce the message out in the community, but yes Janice, for the purposes of public safety, the reserves will be closed for a very narrow window during the program.
Janice McGilchrist: Okay. So again, can you run this through? Which reserves will be closed and when?
Jason Neville: Sure Janice. On Tuesday and Wednesday we’re operating in the Bathurst landscape and the reserves at the Winburndale Nature Reserve, the Eusdale Nature Reserve, Copperhannia Nature Reserve - they’re all nature reserves and normally closed to the public.
On Thursday, we travel to the Orange landscape and we’re hoping to pick up Mount Canobolas and Mount Canobolas will be closed between 8.30 and 10 o’clock on Thursday morning, for us to have a safety margin to get in and do the control program and get out again.
And we’re flying the Barton Nature Reserve and Girralen Nature Reserve and then we head out to the Forbes landscape, where we’ll be looking at Nangar National Park on the Thursday afternoon. Friday, we’ll be looking at Weddin Mountains and Conimbla National Park and those areas will be shut for a two or three hour window on the Friday.
And then we fly into Goobang National Park and it will be closed on Saturday and Monday, open for normal visitation on the Sunday.
Janice McGilchrist: Okay, alrighty. If people want to find out more, if they’re concerned, just want some more information, what’s the best source?
Jason Neville: Look, if the community would like more information on the closures or the operations, my suggestion would be to call the local area officers and the Macquarie area office number is 63-327-640 and the Lachlan area office at Forbes is 68-514-429.
Janice McGilchrist: Okay. I thank you for your time today.
Jason Neville: No, thank you for the opportunity to talk about these programs Janice. What we’re trying to do is implement better conservation by removing the pest animals, and also hopefully buy a window of opportunity for our landholder neighbours, that during this drought have been particularly put under pressure.
And if we can remove some of this shared problem between our two land parcels, it would buy us a bit of time for the bush to recover. And hopefully the neighbours would see it as an opportunity that they’re not getting competition for their resources as well.
Janice McGilchrist: Senior ranger and pest management control, Jason Neville, with the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
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